One of the last issues that Soundkeeper Terry Backer was working on during his life was to promote a ban of plastic microbeads. Found in personal care products such as soaps and facial scrubs, microbeads are tiny plastic balls which are so small that they pass through water pollution control facilities and get into marine environments such as the Sound. Once in the the Sound, microbeads can be mistaken for food and ingested by fish and shellfish, and thus can eventually be consumed by people as well.

Terry worked to promote a ban on the use of microbeads in Connecticut through Soundkeeper and through the CT State legislature where he was a state representative. With President Obama just signing a national ban on microbeads, Senator Chris Murphy praised Terry’s work, saying that “he deserves credit for the state ban and for raising awareness of this across the country” (Source: Click Here). Terry would have been proud that his work had a part in creating a national ban in keeping another man-made pollutant out of the marine environment, adding to a legacy that is hard to match in protecting and preserving the Long Island Sound.